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Show f SHERIFF fiSKED i NO QUESTIONS I DFDEPUTIES i Tells Industrial Relations ' Commission He Hired I All Who Asked for :! Work. t MURDERER COULD GET COMMISSION i. it County Official Fails to Remember Who Paid j ! j for the Weapons ' Used. : t : PENVEK, Colo., Dac. fl. Three ; i,l hundred and twenty-six men, -ivithout l investigation as to thoir qualifications, . were hired by Sheriff Jefferson B. Farr of Huerfano county as deputy sheriffs ij at the request of E. F. Matteson, di-' di-' j vision superintendent of tbe Colorado ! Fuel & Iron company. These men :' ; were armed and paid by the company. The sheriff made no effort to learn if l Ihev -were citizens of the state or bow '., long 'they had been in the state. He ,ii hired them "as they asked for work." '"' This was between January 1 and Sep-. Sep-. tember 1. 1913. The strike was called ! September 23, 1013. j Such was tho testimony of Sheriff ' Farr before the federal commission on 1 industrial relations late today. "So far ' US VOU kDow, then' asked Mr. Walsh, chairman of tho commission, rcd-:; rcd-:; Landed murderer might, have been ' among them, and been given a commission? commis-sion? ! ' "So far as I know," echoed Mr. ' Favr. He had been sheriff for fifteen years. He was a man of varied interests, bank 1 director, some saloon interests, owned city propertv at WalsenbuT, was interested inter-ested in farming and stockraising. Sold Liquor Wholesale. He was in the wholesale liquor busu-i busu-i ness, he said, supplying all but about ! ten of the forty-four saloons in the : rountv, twentv-two of them in Walsen-" Walsen-" burg." He had nothing to do with the ; granting of licenses, i Reverting to the strike, he said it would have been useless to attempt to organize a posse to quell the miners, for no one would have responded. A i thousand miners had marched through the streets. He had but three deputies. : It was common talk they intended to kill him. They never attempted it. ' I didn "t give them an opportunity," oppor-tunity," he said; "I attended to my own "business. Stayed home. " After the militia arrived it disarmed dis-armed the witness and his men and took charge of tho county with the witness 's consent. He furnished the jail. John MeQuarrie, former under sheriff of Huerfano county, and J. H. Patterson, deputy clerk of the district ' court at Walsenburg, preceded Farr on the witness stand. Company Picked Jurors. McQuarrie, at preseut a special agent of tbe Colorado Southern railroad, had resigned after a ''racket" with Farr over the escape of a prisoner. He said that, during his service under Farr the office of the sheriff was dependent politically po-litically upon the Colorado Fuel & Jron company. Coroner's juries were selected in accident cases by the coroner in conference with mine super-1 super-1 int en dents. In damage cases, too, he said, the injured man was never consulted con-sulted as to the jury selected. In nine killings he did not remember of a case where tho victim was not blamed for ciireiessuess. Sheriff Farr kept the dis-1rict dis-1rict clear as much as possible of union i agitators. Sheriff Farr had asked him, lie said, to ' ' frame ' ' John R. Lawson when he was arrested in 1906 by slipping a revolver into his pocket and arresting him for carrying concealed weapons. Lawsou was arrested by a citv policeman afterward. , lie declared he had traced tbe authorship au-thorship of a letter introduced by K. H. W eitzel, manager of the Colorado Fuel k Jron company, as evidence of au attempt by a union man to betray the activities of the union in Colorado by revealing a list of union men and organizers at work in Colorado before the strike to a private detective. When the Colorado Fuel Iron company heard that John R. Lawson was informed, the plan to obtain photographic, photo-graphic, copies of the letter containing the offer was abandoned. List Is Shown. Mr. Patterson submitted a list from the records of the district court at Walsenburg showiug that in ninety cases of death by accidents one was charged to the management of the mine. , In the records for twenty-three years of damage suits for injuries no 'decision had been rendered against the company. The election precincts of union mines, he said, were changed so i that the miners had to travel eighteen miles to vote. 'This list shows 326 men hired as deputy marshals between danuarv 1 and September 1, 1013," begau Nlr. Walsh, in his examination of Farr, "before the strike was called." "We expected a strike," said Farr. "I see a great many foreign names in the list, Mr. Walsh continued. "Were they examined as to .citizenship .citizen-ship in tho 'county?" "No," replied Farr. ieA man asked for work and I gave it to him." "How many of them worked for the company?" Mr. Farr did not know. "You know the coal operators paid for them?" Mr. Farr said he did not, but the countv never paid them. "Mr. Matteson of the Colorado Fuel & Iron company asked me to send deputies dep-uties to the mines and I did it." "Who furnished the arms?" "They were furnished by the coal companies. I don't remember if all the deputies were armed. I furnished a good many," "Where did you get them?" Mr. Farr could not remember. Memory Fails. Mr. Walsh turned to the list of deputy dep-uty sheriffs hired between September Septem-ber 1 and October 15, seventy-live in all. "They must have been armed," Mr. Farr commented. Between January 1 and September 1 men were coming and going, he said. He did not. know what, became of their arms. They were not surrendered to him. He did not remember talking with the company, but he understood that the men were paid $3.30 a day. "Didn't Mr. Matteson tell you tbe company was paving them?" Mr. arr said to thought he had an understanding. "!So a man might have been a fresh, ! red-handed murderer and secured a ! commission so far as your investiga-j investiga-j tion was concerned. You made no ex-I ex-I animation as to qualification, and they ; were paid by the company.. These 326 j men were armed and turned looe on i your community before the strike," ! summed up Mr.' Walsh. J "They weren 't turned loose; thev 1 were sent to the mines." persisted Farr. "They were to report to rno of any violence." Mr. Walsh went down part uf the list and Farr could not remember having hav-ing received any reports from thirty or more. He could not remember where they had been stationed. At the men-j men-j tion of a Mexican name Farr said he knew him, but did not know ho had been a deputy sheriff. |